Posted
by
timothy
on Saturday September 01, 2012 @11:01AM
from the fetch-the-libertarian-paternalists dept.

sciencehabit writes "Before you down that pint, check the shape of your glass—you might be drinking more beer than you realize. According to a new study of British beer drinkers, an optical illusion caused by the shape of a curved glass can dramatically increase the speed at which we swill. The researchers recruited 160 Brits, and asked them to watch a nature documentary while they drank beer from straight or curved glasses. The group drinking a full glass of lager out of curved flute glasses drank significantly faster than the other group--possibly because the curved glasses impaired their ability to pace themselves while drinking."

Just one small study with 160 people cannot be trusted. I feel it my duty to help out with the research, I think that this merits a lot of experimental evidence to ascertain the veracity of this important question. I shall be off to the pub to do repeated tests using different glasses - this evening, straight after the new Dr Who has aired.

They will be able to count. I doubt that they will actually do so.What people do is go out and then go home at a certain time.

Say that in that time you have 5 pints out of pint glasses, but because you now drink out of a straight glass, you will have only 4. That is 20% less consumption.

No matter what company you are working for, 20% less sales is a LOT.

Or look at it the other way around. Imagine that you are a company that sells beer in straight glasses. Going to curved ones can increase your sales by 25%.

In Belgium Stella Artois is chaging the Stella straight glasses for curved ones. They do not change the beer. They do it purely out of marketing reasons. Make the beer classier and not compete with their other standard beer Jupiller. They estimated that the whole image change will take about 10 years. Turn it into a classier beer. And all this without changing the taste of it.

"They assigned each group to drink either about 177 milliliters or about 354 milliliters of lager or soft drink from straight or curved glasses."

No they didn't! It's a British report and beer sure as hell is not measured in ml!

Still, the actual measurements used (6 fl oz and 12 fl oz) still seem to be an odd choice to me. Have to wonder why they didn't use 10 fl oz (a half) and 20 fl oz (a pint) to more accurately represent the normal quantities of beer drinking.

As in any international publication, the volume must be expressed in the international system of Units (SI, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units).It's actually you who are still using the old, unnecessary complex and arbitrary imperial system. Sorry.

Because a pint, or a half, would be a whole glass, and the aim is to study the ability of the drinker to estimate volume based on the glass shape. It's too easy to estimate the volume when you ask them for a volume that's a standard glass size.

If so, it's a less useful result. If someone pours you a glass without you knowing the size of the glass, it's pretty hard to estimate anyway. If you buy a pint of beer, then you know that you have a pint of beer. Unless you buy it in the USA, in which case you have 83% of a pint of... something.

I had a major "aha!" moment after reading this. It is absolutely true in my experience, oddly enough. I get a pint in one of those tall thin glasses and it goes down *fast*. Otheriwse I tend to be more of a sipper. I guess I just figured that might be why they serve beer in those at some of the "chain-ier" restaurants out there. They already know this information, perhaps?

The beer shoots down the into the mouth faster, I think, less feeling against the skin above the lip (what's the term for that?), so maybe you don't get that "I have to wipe my face off" feeling, and just keep drinking?The feeling against the lips/mouth is different between glasses, and I'd be interested to get more data about the cognitive EXPERIENCE of the beer and probably other factors... I posit that this IS an ok place for me to totally geek out on thinking I'd love to conduct an experiment on this sort of thing and learn a lot more details than this research may have accounted for.

I can attest that the shape of the glass causes over drinking. When I was using my half yard, I could go though a six pack of Guinness in minutes. Switch back to a pint glass and it was a leisurely half hour per.

I am a regular social drinker, and I have some fair doubts about this study.

I have tried many different beers in their trademark glasses. But regardless the glass, I always stop at 4 (British) pints of regular beer (5% alcohol level) , as that's the absolute limit of liquids I can hold in my body cage.

My answer for "why some people drink too much?".. I think they are genetically able to process alcohol much faster. Also, the colder climate can make you drink slightly more. Or it could be just that, beer is

Oh I don't know. I am older yet and do not drink but I do remember the fun that I've had. And very little of it has resulted in throwing up, acting like an inebriated asshole or regretting the use of alcohol diminished reasoning faculties.

I do drink (I like a good whisky or wine, beer tends to be too fizzy for me - but a few are ok), but I don't see the point of drinking so much that you end up puking your guts out holding the toilet and a terrible hangovers the next day. Or even having blackout episodes.I personally have never experienced all that bad stuff, and I don't intend to. I don't know why people repeatedly do that to themselves. Doing it once because you're ignorant is not so bad, but to do it more than once or twice seems retarded

Beer doesn't, but if I wanted something bitter, I'd go slap down on a 6 pack of sanbitter.

Perhaps I'm off topic now, but there are many, many beers that aren't bitter. I'm not a huge bitter beer drinker, so I avoid IPAs and anything else that's high on hops. A well-done hefeweizen, brown/red ale, and some pale/blonde ales are really fantastic beverages without the overpowering bitterness. Also, avoid anything cheap. Those are almost always bitter and/or urine flavored.

Anyhoo, I respect your decision not to drink; I just wanted to point this out in case you haven't experienced a beer that sui

I didn't drink until I was in my thirties, and I'm with you. It has several distinct advantages:

1. You are still invited along to events. (They do need a designated driver, after all.)2. If you do come to drinking later in life, when you have some disposable income, you will probably never develop a taste for megaswill-in-a-can or blended whisky. Yes, this is an advantage. If it helps, recall that Starbucks is for people who like the effect that coffee has on them, but don't actually like coffee.3. You can

I don't drink alcohol and don't make a religion of it. I have plenty of friends who enjoy a beer or two or a bottle of whine, but none of them think im boring because I don't drink alcohol.

I also meet quite a few people - mostly men - who think what you think and have thought that since their late teens. Most of them have a beerbelly, a slow brain and can't losen up around women. Sad sight. I on the other hand get my age mistaken for early to mid 30ies (kind of a b

How does 80 years on earth compare to 80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 x10^800000000000000000000000000000 years in [insert heaven or hell of choice here]? ( which is not even a tiny insignificant fraction of eternity BTW )

Aw, well, I'll just go on enjoying myself, my highscores with not-so-naive-anymore women and some neat dancing and social skills and the company that comes with them, all of which would actually easyly be spoiled by to much alcohol, but not at all but completely avoiding it.

Dude, you're 42. You're supposed to be married with a 13 and 10 year old at this point...

I have a question, and if I get marked for troll I'm going to be seriously pissed because my aunt is perpetuating this myth. I do not drink whatsoever. The last thing I drank was a Sam Adam's Winter Lager, a taste of which I had at a Food Expo, but was so disgusted that I vowed to never touch alcohol again.

Anyway, she says that I'm still an alcoholic even though I don't drink because most my family is a bunch of alcoholics. Is this logical or do I need to smack her upside the head?

You conflate a lot of things together with your abstinence from drinking. You friends with beer bellies probably drink too heavily and don't exercise or eat properly. I too look quite a bit younger than my age, I can still solve hard problems, and enjoy learning, but guess what? I drink.

There is a nice middle area between binge drinking and being a teetotaler. It's what most people do -- have a drink now and then with friends, enjoy a good pint or glass of wine or whiskey, and enjoy themselves. I don't care whether you drink or not, and I don't think you are 'boring' for having that lifestyle, but don't try to say that drinking at all will result in horrible outcomes for your life.

Well yes, I'd agree with that. I think people that can only find solace/happiness in an altered state are usually using alcohol/drugs/whatever as escapism for some aspect of their life they hate. But people would often rather do that than make hard decisions in order to alter the state of their real life.